A traditional French cake, reminiscent of British summer strawberries and cream.
Creme Mousseline Ingredients:
Powder sugar – 40g
Cornflour – 20g
Flour – 10g
Milk – 200ml
Vanilla extract – 1tsp
Egg yolks – 2
Butter (room temperature) – 140g
Creme Mousseline Instructions:
Mix together the sugar, cornflour and flour.
Warm the milk and vanilla extract on the stove to just below boiling point.
Whisk the egg yolks with the flour and sugar mix.
Gradually add the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisking all the time. Put back onto the stove and heat and whisk until thick. When ready, pour into a bowl and cover with clingfilm in contact with the surface to cool.
Whisk in the butter. Be careful not to over whisk.
Genoise Sponge Ingredients:
Eggs – 4
Sugar – 100g
Flour (sifted) – 140g
Butter (melted) – 40g
Genoise Sponge Instructions:
Pre heat oven to 210 Fan.
Whisk the eggs and sugar to ribbon stage.
Gradually fold in sifted flour, and the melted butter.
Bake in 2 18cm baking tins for 10 minutes.
Cake Assembly Instructions:
You will need about 600g of fresh strawberries, washed and dried.
And either some gelatin with water or apricot jam to glaze the strawberry decoration.
Use the same 18cm baking tin that was used for the baking. Line the sides in acetate and/or clingfilm.
Put 1 layer of sponge into the bottom. Then select strawberries that are roughly the same size and shape, cut off the tops, and slice in half. Pack them into the baking tin around the edge, cut side outwards, pointy end up. Leave tiny gaps between the strawberries.
Put the creme mousseline into a piping bag with no nozzle. Pipe the creme in a ring round the bottom of the strawberries and into the space between.
Using a spatula, gently press the creme towards the sides of the tin. This will make sure there are no air bubbles caught between the edges of the tin and the cake.
Now pipe more creme into the middle of the cake to cover the bottom sponge. Then chop up lots of strawberries into small cubes and pile them into the creme well. Alternate piping creme and more chopped strawberries until most of the creme is used up.
Put the second layer of sponge on top, and cover smoothly with the remaining creme.
Put into the fridge to set for at least 3 hours.
Once set, decorate in strawberry slices. To create the flower shape, cut the strawberries into thin slices. Start layering the larger slices on the outer edge of the cake, pointy end outwards. For the next layer, use smaller sized slices overlapping the previous layer. The slices will start to stand up the closer they are placed to the middle.
Melt the gelatin or apricot jam, and brush over the strawberries to give them a shine. In this case, less is more. keep in the fridge until ready to eat.
Take out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving to allow the creme to soften.
